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'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Review: The Best Middle Earth Movie Since 'Fellowship Of The Ring'

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is Peter Jackson‘s best Tolkien film since Fellowship of the Ring. Here’s why.

Growing up I read The Hobbit and all of the Lord of the Rings books several times, but as an adult I never reread Tolkien’s first novel of Middle Earth. The story of Bilbo Baggins certainly never faded from memory, but it’s hazier than the later books.

I’m glad about this to some degree, but also a tiny bit regretful. You see, having read all three parts of Lord of the Rings rather more recently when those films came out, I found all sorts of things to nitpick. Some of my more legitimate gripes at the time were made more irritating because of this, and the cutting of The Shire rebellion and Tom Bombadil irked me more than they might have had I not read the novels in fifteen years.

Watching The Hobbit with a foggier sense of the differences between book and film probably helped me enjoy the movie more than I would have—and indeed, I enjoyed it a great deal.

A couple other things to note before we begin.

First, I didn’t see the movie in 3D and I didn’t see the 48 frames-per-second version. I suppose I’m a curmudgeonly old Luddite when it comes to my cinema, but I prefer it in two-dimensions at a comfortable 24fps. Others, like Sonny Bunch, found the higher frame-rate experience disconcerting.

Second, I’m okay with changes to fiction so long as they don’t diminish the original work. I think that some changes to the original trilogy were damaging, but that none of the changes (even in the troll scene) to The Hobbit fundamentally alter it in a way that negatively impacts the story. Quite the contrary.

An Unexpected Adventure

This is the story of a Hobbit in an oversized world, a band of dwarves, and a terrifying dragon. It is the story of an unexpected adventure fraught with peril, of greed and betrayal, and of magical rings and bloody battles.

But it’s also the story of an exiled dwarven king and of a mysterious Necromancer, Sauron, long thought dead, reforging his dark power in secret. It is a story of events transpiring in the build up to an even greater war—a war we already witnessed in Lord of the Rings.

Because it is all these stories and because each exists within the broader context of the One Ring mythology, Jackson has scoured the appendices and added a great deal to his adaptation. One suspects he’ll add a great deal more before all three films are finished.

The differences between The Hobbit book and The Hobbit movie

These additions tie The Hobbit trilogy more closely to The Lord of the Rings. While I can see how context would be important for viewers who never read the books, I think it also makes sense for readers.

For one thing, I suspect that if Tolkien had written The Hobbit second, as a prequel, he would have tied the book more closely to The Lord of the Rings as well, and certainly his obsession with Middle Earth and the vast mythology he created around these stories is proof enough of that. Any chance Jackson has to add in bits and pieces of events that took place within the lore of Tolkien’s universe, I hope he takes.

Characters like Radagast are given actual appearances rather than mere mentions, and we get a bit more of a real-time glimpse of what’s happening in Mirkwood, of the gathering decay and darkness there. Since this is a film, I’m glad we’re shown this, rather than merely told it. Give me scenes any day over exposition.

We’re also given a new antagonist, a Pale Orc who rides a Pale Wolf.

Azog the Defiler is true to canon, but not a figure in The Hobbit. He’s presented accurately enough at first, as the slayer of Thorin’s grandfather (though Thorin’s father, Thrain was not killed by Azog, he was captured by Sauron and died in captivity.)

However, Azog was killed by Thorin’s relative, Dain, in the battle outside Moria. Dain then warned the other dwarves to not enter the lost kingdom having glimpsed Durin’s Bane (the Balrog) within.

Jackson’s Azog lives still, and functions as a vehicle of the hunt in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, seeking out Thorin so that he may once and for all put an end to the blood line of Durin. What’s left unsaid in the film is that the battle at Moria’s gates took place 150 years prior.

True to canon or no, I’m glad that we’re given all this new material.

Not only does it add context and flesh out the story and backstory of the book, it also gives us some much needed momentum in a story that too often lacks narrative drive. The hunt and the personal conflict between Azog and Thorin adds a nice extra layer of drama, and the meeting of the White Council gives us a glimpse at important events happening behind the veil.

While many of the changes bothered me in the original Jackson trilogy, largely because it came at the expense of cut material, this time around we get both continuity with the War of the Rings and a much bigger picture of the conflict than we get in the book.

This, and the fact that Martin Freeman is an excellent Bilbo (and a welcome change from Elijah Wood) are some of the reasons I think The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the best Middle Earth film since Fellowship of the Ring.

Thorin Oakenshield

Another reason I enjoyed the film so much is the emphasis on Thorin Oakenshield.

The Thorin of Tolkien’s fiction is not the same dwarf presented in Jackson’s movie, but I’m honestly more interested in the more complex hero figure Jackson gives us than in the incompetent, greedy Thorin Tolkien created, even if Tolkien’s Thorin found his own redemption in the end.

Thorin, played by Richard Armitage, is something of a mix between Aragorn and Boromir. He is the proud, brave, admired heir to a once-great throne. Like Aragorn, he is one who inspires others, whose courage and honor make him a respected leader. But like Boromir, he is impatient and reckless, quick to dismiss advice or help. Like Boromir, Thorin is too proud. “Pride will be your downfall,” Gandalf tells him, which is true.

The emphasis on Thorin is interesting, and some have written it off as taking the easy Hollywood road by giving audiences the hero they apparently need. I disagree. I like the idea of Thorin as the tragic, flawed hero. In Jackson’s film he is dismissive of Bilbo, and almost cruel to him. He’s haughty and impatient rather than petty and rude. But he’s also brave and admirable, someone you want to like and whose blacker moods come as a surprise. I think his ultimate decisions later in the story will be more galling because of it, and his character will be more interesting.

Thorin, in other words, feels more like a real person and I suspect that his story will be more tragic and poignant because of that. This is in keeping with the fall from grace of Boromir in Fellowship of the Rings, but even better.

Meanwhile, many of the scenes from the book—such as the game of riddles between Bilbo and Gollum—are handled quite brilliantly. My only real complaint is the scene with the trolls which I thought worked better with Gandalf as the primary trickster. Bilbo saves the dwarves enough later on. His and Thorin’s heroics toward the end of the film also felt out of place.

Okay, but do we really need three Hobbit movies?

The short answer: Yes. And now for the long answer…

Thanks to all this added content and the fact that he has the budget, Jackson changed his planned two-part film into a trilogy. I was convinced at first that this was a cash grab, but I’m not at all certain of that now.

First, the story is given plenty of room to spread its giant eagle wings this time around.

There are no glaring cuts, and extended action scenes can co-exist with added scenes like the meeting of the White Council or Radagast’s exploration of a decaying Mirkwood (or Greenwood prior to its turn for the worse.)

The film has many gorgeous moments, and I never felt like it dragged or got bogged down. Rather, this time around I felt like I was getting a more complete glimpse into Tolkien lore. I wanted to linger on many of the shots, and wouldn’t have minded another half hour or so of footage.

The second reason this book needs three movies is that a trilogy better mirrors the narrative arc of the book. It’s basically a classic Three Act story, after all.

The first film is roughly the first Act of the book—the journey to the edges of Mirkwood, with the band of heroes safely deposited by the eagles in sight of the Lonely Mountain. Rivendell, Gollum, the trolls, and the Great Goblin all make an appearance. It’s very similar in structure to Fellowship of the Ring.

Act Two will bring our band of dwarves through the spider-infested wood, lead them to their conflict with the Wood Elves, and finally take them to the mountain, Dale, and the showdown with Smaug. This, again, is reminiscent (though less so) of the structure of The Two Towers with its conflict between the heroes and a secondary villain (Saruman.)

Finally, Act Three will be the Battle of Five Armies with, one assumes, Azog (rather than his son Bolg from the books) as the chief antagonist once again and then the epilogue which, one hopes against reason, will not be as dreary as the epilogue in the last film.

Both Act Two and Three will be interspersed with additional material related to the Necromancer and Gandalf’s investigation of his fortress hideout and perhaps some hints at Saruman’s betrayal. In other words, there’s lots of content to explore in addition to the main narrative arc set up in the book.

I enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey more than I thought I would. Perhaps I simply did a good job at lowering expectations, but I don’t think so. I think Jackson has taken the lore and the stories even more seriously this time around, and while some of his changes simply make the film more dramatic, many of them make it more rich. The artistic license used here actually works, and I for one am pleasantly surprised.

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Leaving out the scouring of the Shire was the greatest flaw in the first Jackson trilogy, and one I cannot forgive. Fellowship’s lack of Bombadil was nothing compared to that, even if I do think Bombadil holds a unique and intriguing spot in the story.

I don’t know your reason as I haven’t read it yet (for putting “Fellowship” ahead of “Return” in terms of quality). But just on conclusion, I agree. I thoroughly enjoyed “Return of the King” and “The Two Towers,” for that matter, but for me “Fellowship” was the best. My only real complaint about “Return,” though, was the seemingly 47 endings, all painfully and slowly drawn out. I saw it again recently after nearly 10 years and again thought to myself, “oh, come on! end already!”

But the best middle-earth movie since “Fellowship” was “Return” for me, since the Hobbit was quite a painful experience for me. The Riddles in the Dark sequence was fun, but I enjoyed little else. It seemed the only thing the movie shared with the book was the title. I’ll go to the next two out of habit rather than hobbit, but I’m praying they’re better.

I felt the same way, until this year went by so fast. Plus, the third installment will be released on July 18th of 2014, so really it’s only a year and a half that we must wait…. and that just means more time for Jackson to polish the movies. He’s also releasing extended cuts for each movie, once again.

I think that the idea of reading books prior to watching movies based on them blinds you to the ideas a filmmaker brings to the content. Rather than seeing the ingenuity in presentation, you see the scenes they added or missed and compare them to some vision you have perfected in your head. In a certain sense, you detract from the experience of seeing a movie by doing this.

I have not yet seen the movie, but I am looking forward to. I’m hoping I enjoyed it as much as you did!

haven’t seen the hobbit yet, but its really refreshing to read a review that is so unbiased and inherently allows people to make up their own minds about the movie in relation to the book, without any clear judgments on its cinematic outcome. thanks!